Nakuru joins race for the skies after elevation to city status

Highway Towers is one of the modern high-rise buildings in the Nakuru central business district. [Harun Wathari, Standard]

Nakuru City is undergoing rapid transformation as architectural masterpieces keep emerging.

For a long time, buildings never rose beyond 10 floors, and the building code reflected the shaky ground caused by active tectonic activity below.

Nakuru sits on the floor of the Rift Valley, and it's not uncommon to see sinkholes and fissures forming where water erodes ancient lava ash underground during long, rainy spells.

However, the adoption of modern building technology has dispelled this myth, with iconic Tower 1 being a trendsetter. Soon, the city could have a skyline of more than twenty floors, with an upcoming building taking shape and said to be the property of Mt Kenya University.

When complete, it'll compete with Tower 1 as the postcard image for marketing Nakuru city, just as Britam Towers overtook other iconic ones like the Kenyatta International Convention Centre.

According to architect Theuri Migwi, the owners of Tower 1 could be the happiest investors.

"A shot of one-way Kenyatta Avenue used to define Nakuru city, until Tower 1 happened. Nowadays, you see friends telling friends they meet at Nyayo Gardens, which is simply behind Tower 1, with the building as the focal point," he says.

He notes that iconic skyline buildings always attract other businesses around them, if not quick occupancy.

"A mention that the business is on what floor and in what room won't make your visitors get lost asking for directions. It could be centrally located and towering to the sky, so it's visible from streets away. More, other businesses could take advantage of such a strategic location to thrive."

Outside Tower 1, professional photographers set up their equipment on makeshift stands. Telling a customer that the shoot is just outside such a landmark building markets the building more than the location. In addition, services around iconic landmarks come at a premium price. That professional photographer charges more than his counterpart at a makeshift studio in Lions Garden in the same town. The hotels around would be high-value clients to target. Room service would make one feel like one is in a five-star facility.

"The county government can use iconic landmarks for their county branding. Take the instance of that landmark building superimposed on a background of Lake Nakuru with its pink line full of flamingos in that outdoor billboard advert for a conference," he says.

Kenya's love for social identity with their town's landmarks, which is a point of pride, is not in contention. If the Mt Kenya University building will be the game-changer in the race to define the Nakuru skyline, it won't be surprising to see them bragging on social media that their town has the only building of its kind in the country.

In addition, you'd see a friend telling another that they meet on the weekend in that hotel across from the iconic landmark. Similarly, we're seeing how Talanta Stadium is being portrayed as towering in the background of the elevated Expressway.

 And where such landmarks are, the county government will move quickly to upgrade the infrastructure around them. A fire hydrant, paved car parks, water and sewerage systems, waste collection, and so on will likely receive attention or be upgraded, with sewer lines, for example, being upgraded to handle the added pressure. The benefits are not felt by tenants of the landmark building alone but by the surrounding areas as well. That entire street, known for its potholes, is regularly resurfaced, with beautification works along its entire length.

Joseph Nyota, another architect, notes that governors can use iconic landmark buildings in their towns to seek elevation to different statuses for better funding from the national government.

"If Tower 1 and Britam Towers were in Machakos town, for example, we could see the governor of that county clamouring for the elevation of the town to city status," he says.

Think what this would unlock. More funding to meet the status of a city with infrastructure upgrades. That airstrip in that county becomes an airport meeting international standards.

A technical college is granted the charter of a full-fledged university. Industries that can outsource jobs, and so on.

"A town without a recognised vertical anchor, like a tall building landmark, is simply a marketplace without an address. You ask for directions to a particular building, and you're likely to be told to walk this, or that way until you come across either a mosque or a Hindu temple, and by the time you get to that destination, you've walked half the entire town's streets," says Nyota.

"It'd be different if you were pointed to a landmark building and you figured out ways to make shortcuts using the building as your reference."

KICC used to define the Nairobi skyline until it was eclipsed by Times Tower and Britam Towers, similar to how other iconic landmarks like the Stanley Hotel or the Intercontinental Hotel became footnotes in referrals.

For Nakuru, it's yet to be seen whether the MKU building will be the newest landmark that'll be the talk of the country. Some critics, however, argue that the city is more of a municipal area and that tall buildings competing for the skyline won't have much impact on the ground than on paper, as services are lacking and streets are decaying.